May 3, 2016
A global union campaign is calling on the Uzbek government to reverse its conviction of Uzbek human rights activist Uktam Pardaev, who was sentenced to three years’ probation in January and is under constant surveillance by security services at his home. Officials also continue to harass Uktam Pardaev’s relatives and friends, who have been watched, questioned and threatened, according to global union and human rights groups.
Human rights activist Uktam Pardaev was jailed while he was monitoring last fall’s cotton harvest in Uzbekistan. Credit: IUF
ardaev, a member of an independent cotton harvest monitoring group, was arrested in November 2015 on trumped-up charges of fraud and taking a bribe. He was held for eight weeks in pre-trial detention, where he was locked in a damp, cold cell with only a dirty mat to sleep on and little food. Pardaev says he witnessed officials torturing and mistreating detainees to coerce confessions and was beaten severely on one occasion.
Pardaev was among human rights activists monitoring last fall’s cotton harvest in Uzbekistan, where more than 1 million teachers, nurses and others are forced to pick cotton for weeks each harvest season. A report released in March documented how the government took extreme measures to cover up its actions last fall, jailing and physically abused those independently monitoring the process.
“The government unleashed an unprecedented campaign of harassment and persecution against independent monitors to attempt to cover up its use of forced labor while taking pains to make widespread, massive forced mobilization appear voluntary,” according to The Cover-Up: Whitewashing Uzbekistan’s White Gold.
Uzbekistan, which gets an estimated $1 billion per year in revenue from cotton sales, faced high penalties for not addressing its ongoing forced labor. But rather than end the practice, the government sought to cover it up, according to the report, produced by the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights.
Take action now and send a message of support calling on the Uzbek government to reverse Pardaev’s conviction; conduct a prompt, independent, and impartial investigation into his credible allegations of ill-treatment by prison officials; and bring those responsible
Mar 16, 2016
The Uzbekistan government again forced more than 1 million teachers, nurses and others to pick cotton for weeks during last fall’s harvest. But this time, the government went to extreme measures—including jailing and physically abusing those independently monitoring the process—to cover up its actions, according to a new report.
“The government unleashed an unprecedented campaign of harassment and persecution against independent monitors to attempt to cover up its use of forced labor while taking pains to make widespread, massive forced mobilization appear voluntary,” according to The Cover-Up: Whitewashing Uzbekistan’s White Gold.
Further, Uzbek officials in some cases forced teachers, students and medical workers to sign statements attesting that they picked cotton of their own will and agreeing to disciplinary measures, including being fired or expelled, if they failed to pick cotton. It instructed people to lie to monitors saying they came to pick cotton of their own volition.
Roughly 1 million teachers, nurses and other workers are forced each year to toil in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields. Credit: Uzbek-German Foundation
Covering Up for Cash
Uzbekistan, which gets an estimated $1 billion per year in revenue from cotton sales, faced high penalties for not addressing its ongoing forced labor. But rather than end the practice, the government sought to cover it up, according to the report, produced by the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights.
The World Bank has invested more than $500 million in Uzbekistan’s agricultural sector. Following a complaint from Uzbek civil society, the bank attached loan covenants stipulating that the loans could be stopped and subject to repayment if forced or child labor was detected in project areas by monitors from the International Labor Organization (ILO), contracted by the World Bank to carry out labor monitoring during the harvest.
Last week, the Cotton Campaign, a coalition of labor and human rights groups that includes the Solidarity Center, presented a petition signed by more than 140,000 people from around the world to World Bank President Dr. Jim Yong Kim, calling on the bank to suspend lending to the agriculture sector in Uzbekistan until the Uzbek government changes its policy of forced labor in the cotton industry.
Farmers and business owners also were coerced by the government, the report found. Farmers are forced to plant state-ordered acreage of cotton and wheat or face the loss of their land. In 2015 the government relied on law enforcement to monitor and control the agricultural process and instill fear in farmers. Police regularly patrolled cotton fields, inspected farms and monitored workers and the harvest progress.
Officials and business owners, under pressure to support the national cotton harvest plan, ordered 40 percent or more of their employees to pick cotton, often in written directives.
Elena Urlaeva (right), was arrested at least four times and physically abused in prison for her work monitoring forced labor practices in Uzbekistan. Credit: Uzbek-German Forum
Physically Abused in Prison
Among independent monitors harassed by the Uzbek government, long-time human rights and civic activist, Elena Urlaeva, was arrested at least four times during the 2015 cotton harvest as well as twice during the spring planting and weeding season.
The head of the Tashkent-based Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan, Urlaeva reported that she was injected with sedatives, stripped searched and forced to go without sanitation facilities during one incarceration last year. Another time, Urlaeva, her husband, their 11-year-old son and a family friend and farmer who had invited them to stay on his land were arrested because Urlaeva “photographed the fields without permission.”
For years, the Uzbekistan government has forced health care workers, teachers and others to pick cotton for 15 to 40 days, working long hours and enduring abysmal living conditions, including overcrowding and insufficient access to safe drinking water and hygiene facilities.
Oct 29, 2015
Uzbek labor rights activist Dimitry Tikhonov says his home office has been burned and all the equipment and documentation he collected on Uzbekistan’s use of forced labor in the country’s cotton harvests has been destroyed. No other room in his home was touched by the fire, he says.
Labor rights activist Dimitry Tikhonov says his home office was burned, destroying all his documentation on forced labor in Uzbekistan. Credit: Human Rights Watch
“All papers and files containing materials from my human rights work, including forced labor, were completely burned,” he says. “My entire legal library, which I have collected over years, is completely destroyed.”
Tikhonov says the fire occurred October 20, when he was away from his home in Angren, a city near the capital, Tashkent. He reported the incident after he returned. A metal box in which he kept a backup computer hard drive was intact, but the hard drive was missing from the case. Some 100 copies of a legal guide on child labor and forced labor that he created also disappeared, although they were in a room untouched by the fire.
The International Trade Union Confederation sent a letter to Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov condemning the attack.
In late September, Tikhonov was arrested and beaten by police as he took photos of some 20 busloads of teachers and school employees forced into the cotton fields for the annual harvest.
Doctors brought in to examine Tikhonov said he had no injuries, and police officers told Tikhonov to sign a statement attesting that he had no complaints about the police. Tikhonov refused and eventually was released.
Elena Urlaeva, head of the Uzbek Human Rights Defenders’ Alliance, another labor rights activist, has been arrested, interrogated and beaten several times this year.
Each harvest season, the Uzbek government mobilizes more than 1 million residents to pick cotton through systematic coercion. From September through October, many classrooms close because teachers are among those forced to pick cotton. Health clinics and hospitals are unable to function fully as their health workers are toiling in the fields.
This year, the government of Uzbekistan is expected to make $1 billion in profit from cotton sales, money that disappears into an extra-budgetary fund in the Finance Ministry to which only the highest-level officials have access, according to the Uzbek-German Forum report
The World Bank has pledged more than $450 million to Uzbekistan, mostly for modernization of agriculture, and has committed to pull out the loans if forced labor is used in project areas. But despite widespread detailed reports of ongoing forced labor in this year’s cotton harvest, the World Bank has not withdrawn its extensive funding.
In July, the U.S. State Department boosted the ranking of Uzbekistan in its Trafficking in Persons report, moving it up to the “Tier 2 Watchlist” from its previous “Tier 3” ranking. According to the State Department, Uzbekistan does not fully comply with the U.S. Trafficking Victims and Protection Act (TVPA) but is making significant efforts to become compliant. In its 2014 report, the State Department ranked Uzbekistan as “Tier 3,” the lowest designation that means it does not fully comply with minimum TVPA standards.
Earlier this year, the Solidarity Center was among 30 global unions, business associations and nonprofit networks urging the U.S. State Department to ensure its Trafficking in Persons report accurately reflect the serious, ongoing and government-sponsored forced labor in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Oct 19, 2015
Six people, including two boys, one age 2, another age 17, died this month in circumstances related to Uzbekistan’s fall harvest, according to the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights. Uzbekistan primarily uses forced labor for cotton harvesting in September and October, and last year, at least 17 people died during the harvest season.
The 2-year old boy died while his mother picked cotton under threat of losing her job as a kindergarten teacher. The 17-year old boy and at least three others died when the cargo truck transporting them to the cotton fields rolled over. Yusuf Esirgapov, a medical doctor, died after local officials ordered his arrest and two-day detention as punishment for not fulfilling the cotton harvest quotas assigned to the hospital he directed.
The Uzbek-German Forum, which regularly compiles updates on forced labor in Uzbekistan, also reports that the director of a middle school threatened to fire a pregnant teacher to mobilize her to contribute to the cotton harvest, either by picking cotton or hiring someone to pick cotton instead of her.
Teachers, health care workers and students are among 1 million workers forced to toil long hours in the cotton fields, often without access to clean drinking water and typically work without crucial safety and health gear, exposed to toxic pesticides and dangerous equipment. The state owns most of the land, leases it to the farmers and imposes cotton production quota.
This year, the government of Uzbekistan is expected to make $1 billion in profit from cotton sales, money that disappears into an extra-budgetary fund in the Finance Ministry to which only the highest-level officials have access, according to a 2015 Uzbek-German Forum report.
Uzbek police twice assaulted human rights monitor Elena Urlaeva this year, once in May for documenting forced labor in the cotton fields and again in August for distributing pamphlets explaining laws that prohibit forced labor.
In July, the U.S. State Department boosted the ranking of Uzbekistan in its Trafficking in Persons report, moving it up to the “Tier 2 Watchlist.” The designation means the State Department claims Uzbekistan does not fully comply with the U.S. Trafficking Victims and Protection Act (TVPA) standards but is making significant efforts to become compliant. In its 2014 report, the State Department ranked Uzbekistan as “Tier 3,” the lowest designation that means it does not fully comply with the minimum TVPA standards.
Earlier this year, the Solidarity Center was among 30 global unions, business associations and nonprofit networks urging the U.S. State Department to ensure its Trafficking in Persons report accurately reflect the serious, ongoing and government-sponsored forced labor in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
In August 2015, the Uzbek government committed to “prevent the mobilization of education and medical personnel for the cotton harvest,” at a roundtable with the International Trade Union Confederation, International Organization of Employers, United Nations, embassies and other high-level officials. Last year, the Uzbek government signed loan agreements with the World Bank agreeing to the suspension of finance if there is child or forced labor in the project areas.
Oct 1, 2015
Karim Sawadogo is young enough to count his age on his hands, but instead he uses them to hack away at the dry, yellow earth in the hazardous mine shafts where he works in Burkina Faso. He has a few memories of what it’s like to be a child in school or at play. “My dream,” he says, “is to make enough money so I don’t have to do this anymore.”
Sawadogo is among 168 million child laborers around the world, 6 million of whom are estimated to toil in forced labor, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s new report, “2014 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.” Some 85 million child laborers are engaged in hazardous work, such as digging gold mines and working in agricultural fields sprayed with toxic pesticides, the report states, citing the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Uzbekistan Retains Bottom Rank for Child Labor
Released yesterday, the report measures the commitment and progress made by governments to eliminate the worst forms of child labor—slavery or trafficked labor, bonded and forced labor, exploitive labor, hazardous work, commercial sexual exploitation and involvement in illicit economies. It ranks 140 countries on their progress since the 2013 report was released last October, from “No Advancement” to “Significant Advancement.” The rankings are based on assessments of meaningful efforts made my governments in the areas of laws and regulation, enforcement, coordination, government policies, and social programs.
The 2014 report ranks 13 countries as showing “Significant Advancement,” including seven in Latin America, four in Africa and two in Asia. Madagascar, Paraguay and Thailand increased their assessment level from “Moderate” in 2013 to “Significant” in 2014. Eritrea, South Sudan and Uzbekistan continue to rank at the bottom of assessed countries because of what the report cites as government complicity in forced child labor.
Sub-Saharan Africa again is the region with the highest incidence of child labor. An estimated 59 million children ages 5–17 are engaged in child labor, or more than one in five children in the region. Nearly 29 million of these child laborers are engaged in hazardous work.
Children Bear the Brunt of Trauma from World Crises
The report reflects on the call to action by 2014 Nobel Laureate and long-time Solidarity Center ally Kailash Satyarthi. “Let’s walk together. In the pursuit of global progress, not a single person should be left out or left behind in any corner of the world, from East to West, from South to North.”
Other notable findings from the report include:
- The Ebola outbreak in West Africa affected 5 million children, some of whom turned to work to support themselves or their families during the crisis.
- An estimated 1 million children were killed, injured, kept out of school, or trafficked as a result of the massive April 2015 earthquake in Nepal.
- Approximately 75 percent of school-aged Syrian refugees in Turkey were not enrolled in schools, making them vulnerable to forced labor and exploitive work.
The State Department this year released an accompanying app, Sweat & Toil: Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking around the World. Users can access a comprehensive database on child labor, searchable by country, goods, or exploitation types. “This report and the new mobile app are intended as practical tools,” says Deputy Secretary of Labor Christopher Lu, “to identify the problem and help governments around the world firm up the foundations of such protections, so that children don’t fall through the cracks.”
